Unsung Class of 2006

Vet recalls South Pacific

June 13, 2010

Editor's note: This article is part of The Journal's Unsung Heroes series, which shares stories of area veterans who served in wars and conflicts from World War II through the present day.

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MARTINSBURG -1942 should have been a year of celebration for Bernard Murphy, but fate had other plans for him.

Article Photos

Bernard Murphy tries on his WWII military jacket and was not surprised by the snug fit. He was drafted in December 1942.

The Berkeley County native was 21 years old back then. He was nearing his first wedding anniversary, and his wife was carrying the couple's first child. But then, a note appeared in his mailbox, and life swept him away to foreign shores.

On Dec. 16, 1942, Murphy was drafted into the U.S. Army.

Standing in the midst of World War II, Murphy said there was little time to bemoan the fact that it was his anniversary, or that his child would be entering the world at any moment. And why, he asked, should he be allowed to stay at home when his three brothers and countless friends were also being drafted into the service?

"Everybody else was goin'," he recalled.

Murphy tried to keep his head up, even when he received word that his wife had delivered a baby boy. He was named Bernard, after his father.

Murphy had only been gone a month when his son was born and was still stationed in South Carolina, undergoing training. Eager to see his newborn, he went to his drill instructor to ask if he could visit his wife and baby for a few days?

"He told me there was a war on," Murphy said of the response. "He (the baby) was seven months old before I saw him."

Shortly after Murphy finished training, he was shipped away to fight as a gun crewman in the South Pacific.

Still, Murphy did hear regularly from his family back home, he said. Throughout the 37 months that he served in the military, his wife wrote him daily. And when he was able to, he responded.

At times, however, Murphy said the situation was too harried for him to write. There were times of fierce combat, he said, recalling one of his first missions.

Before heading into the fighting, Murphy said he and his fellow soldiers lined up in front of a truck and were told to fill their pockets with ammunition. They were also instructed to pack enough supplies to last 30 days. If they were lucky enough to make it through that month, he said, they were told that more equipment would arrive.

"They always prepare you for the worst," Murphy explained.

But sometimes, when they made landfall, things were as bad as his superiors had predicted.

When the unit landed on the island of Los Negros, Murphy recalled, they were greeted by a military policeman who told them they needed to head out. Japanese soldiers, he said, were only a half-mile away. There were already wounded who were being brought into a nearby hospital by the dozens.

"We didn't tarry there very long," he said.

Instead, they hiked nearly three-quarters of a mile in the opposite direction. When they stopped, they strung up their hammocks and started digging foxholes, in preparation for the possible battle.

"Man, we done some fast digging!" he recalled.

And that digging paid off. No one from his unit died in combat the entire time they were overseas, Murphy said.

"I think our outfit was the luckiest in the Pacific."

But lucky or no, that day wasn't the only time that Murphy said he and his fellow troops feared for their lives.

After the war came to an end, the private first class and other members of his unit were told to guard ships that were stationed in a nearby harbor. One day, an ammunition ship exploded, he recalled. Debris flew overhead and Murphy was burned.

"I spent six days in the hospital," he said.

It was the worst injury that he sustained during his tour of duty, but it wasn't the last time the young soldier tangoed with fate.

On his journey home, Murphy's ship ran into a typhoon, he said. Water was coming over both sides of the deck as the boat tossed in the giant waves.

"Our ship turned every way but upside down, for three days and three nights," he said, adding that, "The waves out there looked like the mountains in West Virginia."

Somehow though, the crew made it through the storm, and the 2,700 people who were on board returned home safely.

Murphy made his way back to Berkeley County. Now 85, he said he never forgot the people he met during the time that he served in the military. Through the years, he's remained friends with the men who stand alongside him in photos that he took during the war, he said. And in recent years, he traveled to Alabama to visit one of those fellow soldiers.